An Epilogue featuring Vetinari and introducing Heretofore.

EDIT: DAMN YOU AUTO-CORRECT. Or something of the like. Things have been fixed.

Vetinari opened his eyes.

"So I'm finished, then."

IN A MANNER OF SPEAKING.

The former Patrician raised a perfect eyebrow, but the usual desired effect was not to be had.

"I did not spend much time thinking about this, but I have to admit, my expectation was that of less…sand."

THAT IS COMMONLY OBSERVED.

Vetinari frowned. He was not accustomed to his observations being common.

"I feel rather out of my depth."

MOST DO.

Vetinari sighed. "Can I ask you something?"

CERTAINLY.

"I left one loose end. May I have a look?"

If Death could have frowned…

YOU ARE NOT A PATRICIAN HERE.

"Yes, I know. I am a person, and I am worried." Vetinari attempted to scrutinize the figure before him, much to Death's amusement. "Surely you are also curious? It will decide the future of some of your…customers."

Moist spun happily in his sleek new armchair.

"That's unusual," Lord Downey commented miserably.

"Got wheels on the bottom," Moist chirped. "I could have Heretofore push me around the office if I was having a bad day. Right, Heretofore?"

Heretofore glared at Moist with red-rimmed, sleep-deprived eyes. He snapped some papers across his desk pointedly and made a great show of filling them out.

Moist kicked out a foot to stop himself so he could face Lord Downey. He grinned hugely. He usually did these days.

Lord Downey winced and said, "I believe we are concluded, then?"

Moist shrugged. "I only ask about these things out of personal interest. I am confident that you are conducting your business in the best fashion. By the way, have you begun to consider your successor?"

Lord Downey frowned. "That is generally considered by the successor. I await their efforts with great…pleasure."

"Excellent. All this change, it just makes you think, doesn't it?"

Lord Downey shrugged childishly and glanced at the door. This wasn't how it was supposed to work. He had never been one for small talk, and neither had Vetinari. It had not existed at the academy; assassins didn't need to chat up their clients. Lord Downey was far and away out of his element.

He attempted to utilize an old tried and true standard. It had been Vetinari's, but he liked to imagine that Dog-Botherer had…bequeathed it to him, in his fashion. "Well, I would hate to detain you-"

"Nonsense! Stay for a drink!"

Moist's smile was dazzling. And dangerous.

"I can't," Lord Downey choked out. "Successors take care of themselves, but the Guild at the moment-"

"Oh, yes, yes, yes," Moist flapped a hand. "Always working! Very well then. Don't wait so long to visit next time."

Lord Downey bit his lip to stop it from curling. Visit? Visit? He stormed away, sinking deep into a good sulk.

In the office, Heretofore banged his head against the desk and groaned. "Can I go to bed now?"

Moist laughed. "Oh, I think we can fit in a couple more appointments, don't you?"

Heretofore screamed into his arms.

Moist began spinning lazily in his chair again. "Kid, I'm doing you a favor. Sleep is overrated. You might as well get used to not having it now. Get ahead of the game." He giggled again. It was difficult for Heretofore to tell if he was truly delighted, or delirious.

"What game?" Heretofore snapped. "What game? Are you even running a city? All you do is talk people to death until they're so desperate they'd crawl backwards over glass to get out and get back to work!"

Moist winked. "Exactly."

"I hate you," Heretofore seethed. "I hate you with every bone, every fiber, and every thought!"

"Keep up the good work!"

ARE YOU SATISFIED?

"Five more minutes," Vetinari whispered.

A figure entered the room without knocking. Since adding punching the Patrician to his list of valuable skills, William de Worde rarely bothered knocking on the Oval Office door when he decided to pop by.

"Today we work on Chapter Six!" He announced. "We're going to get the details of your early criminal career straight tonight."

Moist rolled his eyes. "If they were straight, they wouldn't be very criminal. Good evening, Mr. de Worde."

"Also, I need a confirmation on what church you were a part of-"

"Anoia! Always Anoia, of course."

"Liar," said William sternly. "You mentioned potatoes last time."

"That was the local doctrine. I never took up with that stuff. Anoia was the only god for me."

"Since you're working on your life story, I will take my leave," Heretofore beat a hasty retreat to the door.

He wasn't hasty enough. "Take this filing cabinet with you!" Moist cried, pushing a large box across the floor. It trundled gently along and bumped to a stop at Heretofore's feet. The secretary glared at it as if it had widdled on his shoes.

William raised an eyebrow. "A filing cabinet on wheels?"

"EVERYTHING'S ON WHEELS!" Moist cried happily.

William glanced back at Heretofore, who was now wrestling the cabinet out the door. "And how long has it been since either of you slept?"

"For me? Two days," Heretofore groaned. "But I don't know how long that lunatic has been going. I don't think he actually sleeps anymore."

William frowned. "That's not good. You should try to get a little sleep."

"Sure," Heretofore snarled. "Sure."

When Heretofore was safely out of earshot, William said, "All right. What's going on?"

Moist stopped twisting in his chair and suddenly seemed much, much calmer. "I figured out a new trick," He confided to his ghost writer. "If I take a twenty minute nap every three hours, I get as much rest as if I had slept for a whole night. But this way I get more time to work. And…time to make everybody else think that I'm wasting their time."

"I have to say, when you said you were going to do things differently than Vetinari, I didn't really expect…this."

"Vetinari was knurd," said Moist. "He was dry and frosty and unpredictable. I can't be dry and frosty. But I can be silly. I can have fun. And that puts people on edge just as much. Everyone thinks I've cracked, so no one knows how to stop me. They've just got to put up with it. Will, I'm taking away their spare time so they don't have time to mess about. Everyone's too busy dealing with my nonsense to make dastardly plots or underhand bargains or whatever."

"So your plan is to make a lot of people angry?"

"My plan is to make people angry enough that my successor is a breath of fresh air."

"A new Patrician? You're already planning for a new Patrician?"

"Grooming him personally myself." Moist jabbed a finger towards the door. "That is our next Patrician."

William blinked. "I'm sorry, do you mean the filing cabinet?"

"Never mind. You're not here to talk about my successor. Or Chapter Six, am I right?"

William sighed. "I just want some clarification about this new tax law, this…do-away."

"I need a better term for it," Moist admitted. "In fact, I need to rephrase the whole thing. If it's so antiquated that even you don't understand-"

"Hey!"

"Well, take your pen, for instance."

"I have my pen," said William, groping about his in pocket. "It's right…oh."

Moist smiled in an odd, knowing way. "I'll have to speak to Heretofore about his little habit. So, if you had your pen, you could sign a certificate saying that you had donated that pen to the government. And the monetary value of the pen would be deducted from your taxes."

William frowned. "So I could give you my trash, and claim it was a donation?"

"No! Because Harry King is already paid to take care of that sort of thing. You can't donate a service that is already provided. But, if you were to donate the latest five-dozen books I assume your daughter has finished reading to the orphanage, you could put THAT as a…do-away. Hmm," Moist frowned. "It doesn't quite roll off the tongue. Tinker with the phrasing for a while, would you? You're good at that."

"So it's a reward for giving things away?"

"Yes! Sort of," A pensive look strayed onto Moist's face, and stayed there. His eyes searched the room for something, and rested in a corner where the shadows seemed deeper.

Vetinari shrank back unconsciously.

HE CANNOT SEE US.

"People would pay the taxes anyway," said Moist, gesturing aimlessly, "But this way, they're spending the money-or objects, or service-on a cause of their own choosing. People accuse the government of taking their money and spending it on things they don't agree with. This way they can take it back into their own hands. They'd have to give it up either way, but this way they think they're controlling it. Does that make sense?"

He narrowed his eyes, peering hard into the shadows as if searching for something he had lost. Eventually he settled back, looking wistful.

"I'd like to think," Moist continued slowly, "That this new amendment to the tax system is a way of encouraging people to be their own angels."

William watched him carefully. "Moist, that's beautiful."

Moist's gaze snapped away from the shadows, and he shrugged in a pointedly careless manner. William was not fooled. "I'm still working on it."

"I'm writing that down," William reached into a hidden pocket in his jacket and pulled out a spare pen. "To be their own angels…I just have one question."

"Of course," Moist said cheerfully. "Go ahead and ruin it."

William ignored his tone. "What about the rich? If you give them the freedom to spend their money on horrible things, then they'll spend it on horrible things. You won't be able to spend the money where it's needed."

Moist shrugged. "They would spend their money on horrible things anyway. There's going to be more rules, eventually, limits imposed. It's a work in progress. How is your daughter, anyway?"

William rolled his eyes. "Doesn't listen to a word I say. Reads all the time, which is good…I think. Takes after her mother. And yours?"

"Her mother is teaching her lots of tricky words I don't know," said Moist, his grin returning. "I can't keep up at the dinner table. I keep my peace and say "Yes dear" a lot."

William grinned back. "Spike's the First Woman, all right."

ARE YOU SATISFIED?

Death looked down at his latest client, and noticed that the former Patrician was smiling broadly, in a way he never had been able to in life.

"Yes," said Havelock. "Yes, I think that will be fine. Things take care of themselves, don't they?"

EVENTUALLY EVERYTHING DOES. SHALL WE?

"Don't let me detain you," said Havelock Vetinari.